What The Hell?? 4-Year-Old Girl Shot While Jumping On A Bed That Had An Armed .22 Caliber Smith & Wesson Under The Mattress

Charges have been filed after a 4-year-old girl was injured early Saturday morning when a gun hidden between mattresses in a Marquette Park neighborhood home discharged as she was jumping on the bed, police said.

Jarquise Upton, 21 of the 6400 block of South Artesian Avenue, was charged with one count of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, one count of misdemeanor possession of ammunition and one count of misdemeanor theft of lost or mislaid property,according to a statement from police News Affairs. Upton, who is the boyfriend of the victim’s mother, said he kept the gun for “protection,” police said.

He will appear in bond court Monday. The girl was in good condition after being taken to Comer Children’s Hospital for treatment of an ankle injury, said Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Darryl Baety.

The girl was in a home in the 6400 block of South Artesian Avenue when she jumped on a bed about 12:20 a.m., Baety said. The gun, hidden between mattresses, discharged and a bullet hit the girl.

Upton’s girlfriend and his mother told responding officers that the gun — a Smith & Wesson, .22 caliber, blue-steel automatic handgun with a 6-inch barrel and nine live rounds in the magazine — belonged to Upton. When officers asked Upton if he knew the gun was registered as stolen, he told police he found it in a gangway. He said he’d kept it hidden in the yard until Mar. 19, when he brought it into his room and under his mattress for “protection from my girl’s baby’s daddy who messes with me,” according to a police report.